United States Indian Policy and the Debate Over Philippines Annexation: Implications for the Origins of American Imperialism
Author(s)
Williams, Walter L.
Abstract
An examination of United States Indian policy during the nineteenth century reveals a clear pattern of colonialism toward Native Americans. This essay will suggest that this policy served as a precedent for imperialist domination over the Philippines and other islands occupied during the Spanish-American War. Historians are divided over the origins of United States imperialist sentiment – whether the nation ‘stumbled’ into empire, followed manifest destiny policies from the Mexican War, or annexed islands in a search or commercial markets. However, there seems to be a mistaken consensus, at least among many diplomatic historians, that the United States did not have a tradition of holding alien peoples as colonial subjects before 1898.
